Want to get the forum members opinions on this. Do you think that broken units are more capable than they should be?

I do understand that they do have penalties on them:
1. Take extra casualties for coming under fire (except for fearless units).
2. Die if engaged and lose (except fearless units).
3. Die if within 15cm of enemy units after movement (except fearless units).

Yet, they retain their zoc and if scouts continue to act as screens with that enhanced 10cm zoc. They are able to fight in an engagement at full effect, at least for the actual combat part. Their fall back move can be used to actually move towards enemy units and into blocking positions as long as it is outside the 15cm death zone. Lsrwolf and I have taken to calling it the "Advance Towards the Enemy" move. Granted, our willingness to do so is a factor of our large games where there are plenty of units so sacrificing broken ones as a temporary blocking force is not all the difficult a choice.

In answer to your question - No

Move them within 30 and you make them very vulnerable to taking those extra casulaties and not rallying in the end phase. String them out and you are even more vulnerable

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I often think that "Disrupted" would be a better name than "Broken", as the formation can still undertake a number of passive roles in the game.

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I use my old-school counters for Epic and the one I use for broken units is the 'fall back' counter. I think that's a more accurate description. I can understand why the rules have been written as they have though. Removing ZoC opens up a big can of worms regarding game mechanics and interactions between fms. Forcing broken units to move in a certain direction in a fluid battlefield like the one in epic is also very problematic and prone to lots of discussions about 'closest path to own table edge', 'minimum moves to avoid enemy units' and so on. Just assume they aren't broken but more like shaken up and unable to take orders from their commander.

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I think your 80 activations allow for this to happen. Try that in a 3,000 point game with between 9 and 15 activations and you have to become much more cautious with your none fearless broken formations.

You can use them as throw away shields, but will start to get into a serious activation deficit near the end of the game.

This has occurred to me also, but in regular 2k-5k games I think it's only a problem with scouts. I have several times used them to do exactly this - advance to adjust their blocking screen. But they're still balanced IMO.

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The only issues I have with Broken units are when they are Fearless or have RA + Indomitable (as it stands at the moment). Other than that, broken units are a smorgasbord of easy kills for the opponent to take advantage of.

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frogbear, I agree with you. I played against Chaos recently w/ lots of their war engines (all fearless pretty much) and a daemon prince and that seriously devalued the broken fm game mechanic. Especially the latter as having that bloody 3+ RA (who was the genius who gave something a 3+ RA save?) fearless prince running around was annoying. Almost unkillable!

As for indomitable+RA I guess you're talking about knights. But in the latest list their indomitable only gives them a base 4+ save not a 4+RA. Also, at initiative 2 they're not that likely to rally later (5+ in most cases).

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Well my experience comes from way back when I had it in the World Eaters list. After seeing my opponent spending two turns trying to get rid of my Terminator BTS with Indomitable (and not succeeding), I said enough was enough, and took a wholsale slashing of the Fearless and Indomitable in the list. Problem is that I have to keep the units comparable to other lists - hence a fair bit of Fearless exists.

It would be good to do something about Fearless. It would not be hard, it's just people do not seem willing to even discuss the alternatives. Damn shame really.

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As far as I'm concerned, the ATSKNF rule covers 'fearless' troops quite well without taking it too far. Besides one could argue that to not know fear is to also be fearless.

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har har! SNAP!

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I think, in general, there's a few rules in epic that are a bit general and hence collect a number of different effects under one umbrella rule, which then gets applied to a lot of units, as it's the only rule of it's type.

It's a pity that ATSKNF is called, well, ATSKNF, as it really makes it marine only and is often more appropriate than fearless for a lot of units.

The bane of my epic-life is fearless comissar-Leman Russ'.

As E&C pointed out, a broken unit is not non-functional. A non-functional unit is a kill. A broken unit is just temporarily disorganized. It intentionally retains a lot of its abilities, especially those which are passive threats to the enemy.


You are correct. The size of the battlefield you are using reduces the risk of charging forward. Blocking a move also becomes more important, as it is much better at keeping an enemy formation out of effective play. The large number of activations means losing a few makes a lot less proportional change in the overall activation count ratio.

So... reduced risk, increased benefit if it goes right and decreased benefit if it goes wrong.

Oh look. Another person with a reasonable deduction and solution.

So NetERC (neal), is the wholesale use of Fearless ever going to be something that will ever be looked at and possibly changed?

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Fearless was modified in the 2008 changes to remove the most abusive applications. Past that, it's a list by list basis.